Fracking has been around longer than you might think

We've only just begun to make “fracking” part of our vocabulary in Northeast Ohio, but government involvement with the drilling technique goes back quite a long time, according to this helpful graphic from ProPublica.org.The investigative nonprofit notes that while there has been “mounting evidence of water contamination, few regulations have been implemented.” The graphic traces government officials' moves, and their rising levels of caution, over time.ProPublica.org traces fracking back to 1969, when the government detonated a 43-kiloton nuclear bomb deep underground “in an effort to get at natural gas deposits in Colorado.” The gas unlocked by "Project Rulison" was deemed too radioactive to use.The current fracking boom traces back to 1976, ProPublica.org notes, when the U.S. Department of Energy launched the Eastern Gas Shales Project, a joint research project among state, federal, and private industrial organizations to research "unconventional" natural gas resources.The graphic is well worth your time to understand the issue as Ohio becomes a major center of fracking activity.

Closer to a payout

Bloomberg reports that BP plc must face fraud claims by investors, including the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, which said the company misrepresented its accident response capability before and after the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison in Houston on Monday “allowed holders of BP American depository receipts to pursue claims alleging violations of U.S. securities law,” Bloomberg reports. He dismissed claims by investors who bought ordinary shares of London-based BP, saying his court has no jurisdiction over them.“Plaintiffs have sufficiently pleaded facts to demonstrate that BP misrepresented the size of the spill it was prepared to respond to in the Gulf and misrepresented the company's general spill response capabilities,” Judge Ellison wrote in a 129-page decision. “They have sufficiently pleaded actionable misrepresentations related to BP's ability to respond to an oil spill.”

The investors, led by Ohio PERS and New York state's largest pension plan, “said BP publicly declared a commitment to safety while cutting budgets and personnel and rejecting internal complaints,” according to Bloomberg. “BP also initially hid the true size of the oil-well blowout to limit the impact on its stock price, the investors alleged.” BP has denied fraud or any lack of attention to safety.

Game on

This story from the Associated Press underscores the competitive nature of the energy business these days.The AP reports that Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett on Monday signed three key bills for that state's energy sector, “including a wide-ranging bill that updates regulations surrounding the state's booming natural gas industry and removes Pennsylvania's distinction as the nation's largest gas-producing state that does not impose a levy on the activity.”One measure “could deliver long-term tax breaks to a buyer of three Philadelphia-area oil refineries that are shutting down and a massive petrochemical refinery that may be built in southwestern Pennsylvania.”That bill, the AP says, “is a centerpiece of Pennsylvania's competitive pitch in a race against Ohio and West Virginia to persuade a subsidiary of Netherlands-based oil and gas giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC to build a petrochemical refinery in the Pittsburgh area, potentially meaning thousands of new jobs and millions of tax dollars for the state.”

Depends on how you look at it

FirstEnergy Corp.'s recent decisions to close nine coal-fired plants by Sept. 1 are a bit of a Rorschach test for your feelings about environmental regulations.In West Virginia, home to three of the plants, the object of wrath is the federal government and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.In a story in the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association, says the state's coal industry is facing “a perfect storm” caused by a mild winter, a sluggish global economy and, most of all, stricter enforcement of federal laws relating to smokestack emissions.As it did with a prior announcement that it was closing six coal plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland, FirstEnergy said the decision to close the West Virginia plants of its Monongahela Power Co. subsidiary is based on the EPA's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), which recently were finalized, and other environmental regulations. About 105 people stand to lose their jobs in West Virginia, while the closings in the other three states affect about 530 employees.

Mr. Raney tells the Daily Telegraph, “The loss of these 105 jobs at the Mon Power plants are absolutely related to the tighter controls on emissions by the Environmental Protection Agency. You think of the 105 families that will be impacted by the closing of those plants, and also think of all the coal mining jobs that will be lost as well.”West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said in a statement that he wants the EPA to take a closer look at the impact of the new mercury/air toxins standards.“This is another example of how the EPA is costing us good jobs in West Virginia and throughout Appalachia," Gov. Tomblin said.But a Forbes.com contributor offers a different take on the situation.“Some call it an Environmental Protection Agency onslaught,” writes Ken Silverstein, editor-in-chief for Energy Central's EnergyBiz Insider. (FirstEnergy itself cited new EPA regulations as the main reason for the planned closures.)“Others call it for what it is — environmental improvements that are long overdue,” Mr. Silverstein writes. “Indeed, utilities are now forced to choose whether to retrofit or to retire their old coal plants that do not have modern pollution controls. It's expensive to go back and fix those that are as old as 50, or ones that have outlived their expected days on this earth.”So it's “cheaper to just shutter them, particularly now when the demand for electricity is down and when the price of natural gas is relatively cheap,” he adds. “FirstEnergy knows: The courts already directed it to fix an older plant at a cost of $1.8 billion. If it had to do that nine times over, that would break the bank.”You also can follow me on Twitter for more news about business and Northeast Ohio.

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